When setting up your marketing plan there are obviously different channels to advertise on, including one or a variety of online, print, radio, T.V., etc. Many ask how you can actually track the calls made to your company through your advertising efforts.

Call tracking is a great way to do this.  Through call tracking, you are able to tie incoming calls to where they are coming from, whether that is a radio or TV spot or even an ad online. Call tracking companies usually charge a monthly fee for each number you use for your campaigns; plus a small fee per minute. The call tracking companies also provide extensive reporting to the advertiser such as unique callers, length of call, leads per day, voicemails, etc. They may also include features so that when a customer calls from one of the lines, the advertiser will be notified before they actually begin speaking with the person on the other end of the line.  An advertiser also has the ability to set up a recording feature that starts every time the incoming phone calls are answered.

An advertiser can pick out one number for simplicity or multiple numbers channels where they are advertising. Below are a few scenarios of how you may want to use call tracking when you are running multiple ads in a variety of channels, such as   newspapers and magazines, online ads, and radio ads on various stations.

Scenario 1 – Purchase one phone number and use it across all of your marketing channels. This will be a measure of potential customers that have actually seen or heard your paid advertisements

Scenario 2 – Purchase different lines, one for print ads, one for online ads, one for radio, etc.  Through reporting you could see how your potential target clients are responding to the marketing channel or advertisement being presented.

Scenario 3 – Purchasing multiple lines for each marketing channel. In print for example, you might have one line for the newspaper and one for magazines, or more than one line if you are advertising in a number of newspapers. The same goes for magazines, sponsored online ads and multiple radio stations.

Call tracking is a very unique service to measure your ROI based on where and when the advertisements are running and receiving a better return on your overall investment.

Remember hearing the story about lemurs? Every year around a certain time they jump off a cliff. However, one would think that at least one lemur would look over the cliff and say, “Hmm, I don’t think I’m going to follow the crowd in jumping off the cliff.” It seems like it would be common sense, yet it happens in the world of online marketing time after time. The rule of thumb to remember when marketing online is that following the crowd isn’t always the best option, especially when it comes to keywords and websites.

If it’s been said once, then it’s probably been said a thousand times, “I saw my competitor doing it.” This seems to be the classic answer that companies use to justify their marketing strategy or what they think is a marketing strategy. Let’s look at an example. Say Company A is a leader in providing offshore outsourcing to software companies and they are bidding on the keyword “offshore.” Company B, who wants to gain in market share and be a leading provider of offshore outsourcing to software companies, see’s that Companies A’s ad is coming up for searches on the keyword, “offshore” and  Company B decides they also should be bidding on that keyword.  Company B is assuming that Company A is bidding on the right keyword, but they aren’t. The keyword “offshore” covers a myriad of topics like offshore drilling, offshore banking, offshore racing, and offshore boating to name a few. The keyword “offshore” is too broad for the niche service of offshore outsourcing to software companies. Both Company A and Company B will be losing money on the keyword “offshore.”  Like a popular proverb says, “If the blind lead the blind they’ll both fall in the ditch.”

Another area where companies blindly follow a competitor is in website design and content. Many times a company will see what a competitor is doing on their website and mimic it as closely as possible without plagiarizing. Here’s the deal. Many times the competitor’s website isn’t good. They don’t have good keyword density, the site isn’t user friendly, and the url’s don’t have a good naming convention. In some cases, the competitor is using black hat tactics that could get them banned by the search engines. Yet, another company will look at a competitor’s site and say, “we want to be like them.” 
In some cases, the company that copies ends up losing clients, while the competitor makes adjustments to the site that others are copying.

It’s good to track and watch competitors, but to blindly follow and copy them is not recommended. Many times competitors are bidding on the wrong keywords, wasting money, and are clueless on how to run a successful paid marketing campaign. On top of that, they may think their website is great or they may realize it needs help and they are working with someone to get it changed (while your company is copying their old mistakes). In the world of online marketing it’s better to research and ask questions. Then decide if what your competitor is doing will work for your company. It’s good to be cautious when following a competitor; otherwise you could be following them over a cliff.

What is remarketing and how can it benefit my online marketing strategies? Will I scare away potential customers? Is remarketing invading personal privacy?  These are often questions that arise when remarketing is discussed. 

Remarketing works anonymously through visitor actions that take place on your website. The specific visitor actions are determined by you the advertiser using one of two strategies, or even a combination of both.

Interest Categories – This is where you are targeting users based on sites they have visited throughout the content network (Google’s network of websites where AdWords advertisers can show their ads).

Example:  If you want to target sports categories, you can pick a list of users compiled by a database. The database collects a comprehensive list of users that visit relevant sites within the interest category and then your ads will be shown on those types of websites. If a user was on ESPN, Sports Authority, etc. the user would then be grouped with similar sports sites for which your ads could be displayed.

Custom Remarketing Lists – Custom remarketing lists relate to people that have visited your site and have performed a specific action.  To create custom remarketing lists, tags must be strategically placed on your website to track a specified action or behavior on your website.  Then when visitors complete the task specified, you will have the opportunity to remarket to them by showing ads as they navigate throughout the content network.

Example: You could track users who have abandoned the shopping cart on your site and offer them a discount or a “reminder” via your ads while they are on other websites.  You could also define users that have purchased a product and remarket to them 30 or 60 days after their purchase.

Banner or text ads can be delivered to the visitor on the content network as part of a remarketing program. You may put a frequency cap on a user so your ad will not continuously bombard them. Remarketing is meant to be a subtle marketing or branding technique to enable your brand to stay in the minds of your potential customers.
Another great aspect is that remarketing strategies have trended to achieve a higher ROI than most marketing techniques.  Try remarketing today to reach attain new customers.